Avalanche demonstrates a special technique designed to reach the high and low air. The middle is just excess - they won the race by a healthy margin anyway. Picture courtesy Andrei who crews on Vampire. Andrei took many great photos of the race which can be found here. Thanks Andrei!

Well that will be one to talk about for a while. The strongest winds we have had this spring happen while we have the least number of people on the boats. This inaugural Point Roberts Jack and Jill race had 8 boats compete. The winds piped up to 22 knts by the committee boat and almost nothing by mark 2 and a half knot of current running east to west across the beach. The two races where fast and furious.           

The day got off to a slow start as the border was unexpectedly slow but that was ok as it gave us time to be ready. The show got rolling at 10:30 with two races twice around a triangle. I should have known it would be a tough day when I called the race committee to confirm to orientation of the start line and they promptly told me they had no time as there was only 4 min left in the start and they where busy! What 4 min? get the jib up quick. How far to the line? Where is every one? Where was the horn? We latter found that the club horns had run low. And the committee was right. The flags rule.

So with the Jacks first the start was slow. I would like to tell you who had a great start but I cant. All I can say is that sailing without all the crew is hard work. I think Mark and Kelly did well but then Mark had his Jib caught on his mast and tried to correct it only to find he was now in a heavy traffic line. I did see John in second place chasing Kelly in Avalanche. But that did not last long as John and Monica where quickly passed by Tumbleweed. Terry and Linda had that boat rocking and they where loving it.

The reason was that Terry and Linda where going hard core and no reef while almost every one else was trying to keep the boat from heeling hard. When we made the windward mark I chose to show my crew Ester (her first time sailing like this) how not to go around a mark by hitting it. And Vampire didn’t just hit it we rolled it down the side of the boat. I should have know I would hit it as I had just told Mark and Shawna on Amigos that I could not make the mark two min earlier. Undeterred by my own scepticism I boldly drove at the mark. Then watched two boats pass me as I sailed to the side of the course to exonerate my self. The rest of the course was a drag race. Was it me or was that San Juan Zephyros catching us? Kelly and Val on Avalanche had thought we had caught them on corrected but they where wrong. The finishing order was as follows.

1^st Avalanche

2^nd Mermaid

3^rd Tumbleweed

4^th Vampire

5^th Zephyros

6^th Amigos

7^th Mystic